Despite the scandals, in-fighting, rackets and controversy, both parties managed to score big in many aspects this year. Yet they continued to shed votes and trust, failed to inspire the young and somehow fuelled more disillusionment and demotivation. Mark Laurence Zammit lays it all out.

In 2023, a Labour government kept unemployment at record low levels, attracted whopping tourist numbers that surpassed pre-pandemic levels and drew in foreign direct investment while growing an economy that seems to be rebounding strongly following the pandemic and Ukraine crisis.

Most crucially, it was able to do so without touching energy subsidies.

The government continued to pump hundreds of millions of euros to cushion volatile international energy prices, allowing families and businesses to live and operate without fear of bill shock. 

International institutions have urged Malta to gradually phase out the subsidies and Finance Minister Clyde Caruana has warned on multiple occasions the pump will one day run dry unless feasible alternatives are found.

But it was clear during last October’s budget speech that the subsidies are here to stay, at least for now.

And yet, voters still seem to be growing more and more disenchanted

The government was also able to increase pensions and the minimum wage while also sustaining essentially all its social and housing schemes and fiscal incentives.

It did all that while also having a seat – and temporarily chairing – the UN Security Council, drawing global respect from states far bigger and more powerful for its position on the Gaza and Ukraine wars.

Malta, a neutral country, took a clear stand in favour of Ukraine while still managing to garner Russia’s backing to take over the presidency of the world’s largest regional security body, the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE).

Malta will assume the OSCE chair next year as part of a diplomatic solution following Russia's refusal to approve Estonia for the role.

KM Malta Airlines could also make the cut as a 2023 win of sorts for government, depending on how you see it. The new airline, which will fly its maiden flight in April, is the government’s solution to being forced to drop Air Malta’s life support while also ensuring Malta has a national airline.

Pledges have been made to state that the new airline will operate on commercial grounds. Time will tell how that will pan out.

When PN did well

Even the Nationalist Party managed some big wins in 2023, despite ending the year with few favourable surveys to show for it.

Through protests, speeches and parliamentary debates, the Opposition party managed to block the government’s original attempt to reform abortion laws.

It was also the PN that put forward a parliamentary motion to force the government to order a public inquiry into the death of Jean Paul Sofia in July.

Labour’s decision to vote against that motion prompted nationwide outrage as cameras showed Sofia’s parents dramatically pleading with government MPs to allow an inquiry.

Days later, as protesters prepared to gather outside Castille, Robert Abela announced a U-turn.

The PN was a key player in both those sagas, but securing a Sofia public inquiry and revisions of abortion law amendments required the public’s support. 

When it came to the abortion issue, President George Vella’s absolute refusal to sign the law in its initial form was also a huge factor. 

The more Vella refused to comment publicly on the issue, the more speculation he fuelled and the more he became part of the political decision.

But one battle the PN fought and won mostly on its own was the annulment of the notorious hospitals' deal.

In a landmark, dramatic judgment in February, a court annulled the government’s contracts to privatise three state hospitals and dubbed them “fraudulent”. It was ruling in a case filed by PN MP Adrian Delia in 2018, when he was still PN leader.

Steward Health Care appealed the sentence while several factions of the PL – including former prime minister Joseph Muscat – argued the judgment confirmed the government too, like the people, was defrauded.

But the appeals judgment handed in October slammed that narrative and scored an even greater victory for the PN, as it concluded “senior government officials” were complicit in the privatisation fraud and the Maltese government had failed in its duty to protect the national interest, defending Steward throughout the process.

The double victory also served to position Adrian Delia and Bernard Grech side-by-side as friends and colleagues at the forefront of the battle, after months of internal turmoil following the 2020 leadership election which saw Grech ousting Delia as the PN’s top dog.

And yet...

And yet, voters seem to be growing more and more disenchanted with both parties and their politicians.

After a record general election victory just last year, the PL had already shed more than 26,000 votes by October this year.

A Times of Malta poll in July showed Abela was in freefall and would have won by fewer than 18,000 votes if an election were to be held then.

Abela’s two major U-turns this year – on abortion and the Sofia public inquiry – were likely responsible for the hit in the polls, at least to an extent.

Then, the image of him in a bright green polo shirt and a backwards baseball cap, driving his massive boat out of the Grand Harbour two days after Sofia family’s commotion in parliament did him no favours either.

Furthermore, the U-turns came on the back of the landmark hospitals deal judgment, following which the PL had already evidently took a hit in the March polls.

Rosianne, rackets and hellish powercuts

One other thing Abela would have probably preferred to do without this year was the Rosianne Cutajar saga.

As the country spent hours indulging in Mark Camilleri’s leak of thousands of WhatsApp chats between Cutajar and Yorgen Fenech, pressure was mounting on Abela to discipline Cutajar, at the time a Labour MP. 

Eventually, Cutajar walked before she was pushed. She quit Labour’s parliamentary group and announced she would remain in parliament as an independent MP.

Times of Malta’s exposés of two separate rackets – one concerning benefit fraud and the other driving licence tests - in September and October also contributed to Abela’s already-rough summer, although polls suggest he and his party came out of them relatively unscathed.

Arguably more damaging politically to Labour were 10 hellish days in July of nationwide powercuts, accompanied by an unrelenting heatwave that drove many people to the brink.

As Labour bled votes, the PN seemed to be unable to take advantage. Polls suggested the party continued to struggle to make inroads with voters, only gaining some ground in October.

Polls were even more problematic for Grech personally.

The PN leader’s trust rating barely budged, and in October’s poll, he was even overtaken by his predecessor Delia as PN voters’ favoured party leader. Both of them trailed Roberta Metsola, the MEP and European Parliament president who was the PN’s preferred leader throughout the year.

Furthermore, the number of undecided voters skyrocketed this year, and although trends show that the figure is likely to reduce drastically closer to the election date, it does not augur well after an already record-low voter turnout in the 2022 general election.

Speaking of the election

Speaking of elections, both parties are struggling to recruit candidates for the upcoming local council elections, with many youths showing utter disinterest in taking on a political role.

Senior sources close to both major parties told Times of Malta last month that they were seeing serious levels of demotivation, disillusionment, dissent and disempowerment, even among grassroots supporters who are generally enthusiastic all year round.

Many were telling the parties that councils had been reduced to “customer care centres” for the central government and its entities, leaving them with no space to make any real difference.

There is little energy and most people do not feel inspired by Abela or Grech at all, they said.

There is also widespread discontent among people in the PL who feel they are not getting a fair share of the pie as others grab as much as they can. 

Others approached to run for a local council seat were asking for personal favours in return, the sources said.

What’s next?

Both large parties are likely to overcome this challenge and field enough candidates for the MEP and local council elections next June. But even if they do, the voter turnout and the result of those elections will reveal a lot about the Maltese people and their politicians.

Meanwhile, both parties seem to agree that the country needs to shift its economic model, although they do not quite agree on how it should be done. Both have made half-hearted promises to safeguard the environment from further destruction, but it seems they also agree that we need to destroy it just a little bit more before we can start to save it.

The MEP and local council elections, the selection of a new president, the outcome of a magisterial inquiry into the hospitals' deal and the start of Malta’s new national airline will be among the highlights that will certainly make 2024 an interesting year in politics.